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Tuesday, August 02, 2011

what about my boo boo?

In January 2012 Medicare will pay physicians 30% less if the cuts proceed as proposed. This was postphoned by congress a year ago. Will it go into effect this time? Who knows.

Physicians have a lot of concerns about the debt ceiling bill too. It pretty much requires cuts in entitlement programs like Medicare in the next few years. If congress can't decide about cuts, they will be automatically triggered. Lots of concern that cuts will be made in provider fees.

There is no question that physicians are struggling with medicare reimbursement now, let alone with the proposed cuts. The choice in the future will be make less money or don't see medicare patients. Guess which one they will choose? Don't see Medicare patients of course.

So the question becomes, as doctors quit seeing medicare patients, who will see them? Everybody knows about the exploding elderly population that will only increase in the next 20 years. Primary care is already a dying specialty and this won't help that situation. Is the future of primary care NPs and PAs?

All of these developments only move us closer to a meltdown of our health care system. The proposed Obamacare will do nothing to prevent it. It is inevitable that this country will have a government run universal health care system whether we like it or not. It will change the way healthcare is done. It will change the way we look at healthcare. You might have to stay home and take care of your boo boo without any help. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.